Teachers warn draft secondary subject curriculums are too crowded

English teachers fear thousands of teens will drop their subject if a draft curriculum for senior classes goes ahead unchanged.

Consultation closed this week on draft curriculums for Years 11 to 13 in 26 subjects including English, maths and science.

Post Primary Teachers Association vice-president Kieran Gainsford said there were probably as many opinions about the documents as there were teachers but an over-riding worry was how the documents would translate into the new qualification scheduled to replace NCEA from 2029.

"How are we going to know which parts of this really big, knowledge-filled curriculum are going to be essential for assessment," he said.

"People are really worried about trying to go ahead and redesign their programmes and take another look at how they run things in their schools without having the full picture yet," he said.

Gainsford said another common concern was the amount of content in some of the drafts.

"In my context, Year 11 Science for example has a comically-large amount of really detailed agriculture and horticulture stuff which has a place of course in a New Zealand curriculum but perhaps insufficient thought given to how schools are going to deliver this in one school year," he said.

Gainsford said the Education Ministry had said it could make changes, including reducing the amount of content, but that remained to be seen

The proposed senior secondary school English curriculum has compulsory Shakespeare at Year 13 and drops film at Years 11 and 12.

English teachers association president Pip Tinning said some teachers really liked it, but most feared it had too much content and was too academic.

"The vast majority ... were concerned about the amount of content, especially at Year 11, but also at 12 and 13 and were concerned about how they were going to get through that content in one year," she said.

"Most of our members' feedback that came through was the level was actually just too high. So a lot of our members came in ... saying we did these things when we were at university but now we're asking 16 and 17-year-olds to cover those aspects."

Tinning said schools offered different English classes to suit students' interests and career paths, but that would not be possible with the draft and that would turn a lot of teens off.

"We had so many teachers who were just absolutely beside themselves around the number of students who will drop," she said.

Tinning said her own school had six or seven Year 13 classes and she estimated that would fall to two or three if the draft curriculum went ahead.

She said teachers at large, well-resourced schools were more positive about the draft than those at smaller schools.

The association's submission recommended dropping compulsory Shakespeare at Y13, reinstating the study of film and "visual texts" at Years 11 and 12, and reducing the number of texts expected at Y11.

Some maths teachers believed their draft was too crowded and Massey University professor Jodie Hunter said if it was not pared down, teachers would face a difficult choice.

"The curriculum that's been put out for Year 12, it's gigantic. It's got so much content in it the choice is going to be are you just going to teach for memorisation so you can get children to pass the test but move over the material really quickly or are we going to teach less content but actually have depth of understanding," she said.

Hunter said the curriculum was out of step with world leader Singapore where senior students learned less, but in more depth.

NZ Association of Science Educators president Jay Vijayakumar said it supported the goal of a clearer, knowledge-rich curriculum but questioned whether schools would be properly equipped to deliver it.

He said Year 11 was a major pressure point.

"Teachers are concerned that the proposed volume of content could lead to rushed coverage rather than deep learning, especially for students who need more time to build confidence and understanding," he said.

Secondary Principals Association president Louise Anaru said member surveys and feedback showed principals were worried about the timeline for curriculum changes and the resourcing to support it.

She said they were also asking how the new curriculums would affect Māori, Pacific and high-equity students and how they would embed the Treaty of Waitangi.

The government wants to begin introducing the new curriculums along with a new secondary school qualification starting with Year 11 in 2028, Year 12 in 2029 and Year 13 in 2030.

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